Mr. Chillingworth was dressed, and he hastened down
and entered the street with great desperation.
He had a hope that he might be enabled to disperse
the crowd, and yet be in time to keep his appointment
at the duel.

His appearance was hailed with another shout, for
it was considered, of course, that he had come to
join in the attack upon Sir Francis Varney. He
found assembled a much more considerable mob than he
had imagined, and to his alarm he found many armed
with all sorts of weapons of offence.

“Hurrah!” cried a great lumpy-looking
fellow, who seemed half mad with the prospect of a
disturbance. “Hurrah! here’s the doctor,
he’ll tell us all about it as we go along.
Come on.”

“For Heaven’s sake,” said Mr. Chillingworth,
“stop; What are you about to do all of you?”

“Burn the vampyre—­burn the vampyre!”

“Hold—­hold! this is folly. Let
me implore you all to return to your homes, or you
will get into serious trouble on this subject.”

This was a piece of advice not at all likely to be
adopted; and when the mob found that Mr. Chillingworth
was not disposed to encourage and countenance it in
its violence, it gave another loud shout of defiance,
and moved off through the long straggling streets of
the town in a direction towards Sir Francis Varney’s
house.

It is true that what were called the authorities of
the town had become alarmed, and were stirring, but
they found themselves in such a frightful minority,
that it became out of the question for them to interfere
with any effect to stop the lawless proceedings of
the rioters, so that the infuriated populace had it
all their own way, and in a straggling, disorderly-looking
kind of procession they moved off, vowing vengeance
as they went against Varney the vampyre.

Hopeless as Mr. Chillingworth thought it was to interfere
with any degree of effect in the proceedings of the
mob, he still could not reconcile it to himself to
be absent from a scene which he now felt certain had
been produced by his own imprudence, so he went on
with the crowd, endeavouring, as he did so, by every
argument that could be suggested to him to induce
them to abstain from the acts of violence they contemplated.
He had a hope, too, that when they reached Sir Francis
Varney’s, finding him not within, as probably
would be the case, as by that time he would have started
to meet Henry Bannerworth on the ground, to fight
the duel, he might induce the mob to return and forego
their meditated violence.

And thus was it that, urged on by a multitude of persons,
the unhappy surgeon was expiating, both in mind and
person, the serious mistakes he had committed in trusting
a secret to his wife.

Let it not be supposed that we for one moment wish
to lay down a general principle as regards the confiding
secrets to ladies, because from the beginning of the
world it has become notorious how well they keep them,
and with what admirable discretion, tact, and forethought
this fairest portion of humanity conduct themselves.